If you think that changing your city or county charter can help improve the functioning of your local government, give it a try. It is challenging work. It is detailed work. It takes time and lots of research. Over the time that you work on your effort there will be highs and lows that provide you with great hope and sometimes despair. 

In the final analysis, with the right support, whether you are successful or not, you will positively impact your community and make its citizens understand how important good government is and how important it is to have good candidates for elective office.

In Maryland, cities can change their charters either by action of their city council or by the referendum process that requires obtaining enough signatures of registered voters to put the matter on the ballot for the citizens to vote for or against. I participated in the successful effort to change the charter of the City of Cambridge to establish a city manager form of government. That happened by a vote of the City Council. While there have been challenges in transitioning from one city manager to another and transitioning from one city council to the next, the improvement in the functioning of government and the resources that have come to Cambridge in part because of our having professional management have been significant. 

When we hired our first city manager, a national developer by the name of Charlie Fairchild saw promise here that has resulted in the redevelopment of what is now called Cambridge Marketplace with the Shore Regional Health Emergency Room and medical offices, new businesses, and some fast-food restaurants. In addition, he redeveloped a portion of nearby Dorchester Square for additional businesses, government offices, and fast-food restaurants. He is now developing up to three hundred homes on the Hyatt property all of which helps to improve the tax base and the quality of life for the city and county. 

Other development has followed with the recently opened Philips Packing House Building F and the Sailwinds property that is now looking for developers for the various parcels of property there for businesses and residential and other property uses.

With counties, the charter change process is different in that the only way to change a county charter is by referendum after obtaining signatures of 20% of the registered voters. Not only is the process different, it is also more difficult. While we are in the midst of that effort at this point, we can already see change happening.

With primary elections coming in July and then the final vote in November, the two issues that the Dorchester Citizens for Better Government have raised have grabbed the attention of registered voters, the candidates for the positions on County Council, and last Tuesday evening the current County Council.

One of our issues has been the lack of transparency by the current council. Despite requests of the citizens, the County Council by 3-2 votes previously refused to show their meetings on CATV or the internet despite the challenges of Covid-19. During the campaign process, the Dorchester Chamber of Commerce was able to hold candidate forums that included questions on the two issues that the Dorchester Citizens for Better Government had been advocating for in its petitions. All the candidates that participated in the forums, except one incumbent, supported in one way or another the basic issues that we raised.

This past Tuesday evening the County Council reversed itself on the issue of holding the meetings on CATV or the internet and voted to do just that. Because I had to listen in on the phone; the audio for the meeting was poor; and microphones were either not available or poorly placed, I am not sure if the vote was 4-0 or 5-0, but it passed. Now all we need our County Council to do on this issue, at this point, is to vote to provide the non-confidential documents for each meeting to the public electronically by placing them on the County website for anyone interested to review. While we need to have the charter changed on this and the issue of allowing the county manager to actually manage the day-to-day operations of staff, they will have to wait. What we want is to ensure that future County Councils are not able to be less transparent as they have been. The other night was a good first step that would not have happened without the work of the Dorchester Citizens for Better Government.

More on these issues will be coming as things progress.

Thanks for Reading. Please be in touch.

Judge Rideout is the former Chief Judge of the Alexandria, VA Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court (1989-2004). From 2004 until the present he has consulted in different states to support their efforts to improve their child welfare systems. From 2016 to early 2021, he was the Ward 1 Commissioner on the Cambridge City Council. Throughout his career, he has been an advocate for improving the lives of children in his and other communities.

 

 

The 2021-2022 oyster harvest on public grounds was one of the best in years.

Some younger watermen say it was the best oyster year of their lives.

Crabs, however, are another story.  Pretty much the opposite.

“This so far is the worst crabbing season I’ve ever had in my life,” said a commercial trotliner.  “It’s all I can do to catch one or two bushels.”

To make matters worse, inflation appears to be putting a dent in demand. While the season started out with watermen earning $200 per bushel and more for their crabs, that number has dropped now to the $150 per bushel range.

That translates into anywhere from $250 to $300 per bushel for consumers at the retail and restaurant level.  With gas hovering around the $5 per gallon mark and prices for everything else on the rise due to all kinds of inflationary pressures, people aren’t running as quickly to buy their crabs for summertime feasts. Typically in supply and demand scenarios, shrinking supplies lead to rising prices. But this year, with supply chain issues dogging the marketplace, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the tenacious coronavirus and all of its variants continuously injecting new doses of uncertainty around the world, there’s nothing typical about supply and demand behavior.

Scientists monitoring the overall Chesapeake Bay crab population predicted an off year in 2022 based on the results of extensive sampling in the winter dredge survey. That survey projected the lowest number of crabs in the Chesapeake system since the winter dredge survey started in 1990.

One buyer said even if the harvest were stronger, he would still have a hard time moving the crabs throughout the mid-Atlantic region. “People are having to make choices and crabs aren’t always their first choice when the cost of essentials is going up.”

“It’s a good thing the watermen had a good oyster season,” said another industry observer. “Now, with the cost of bait and fuel, and fewer crabs, many are having a hard time making ends meet.”

It costs between $160 and $200 in fuel and bait to leave the dock in the darkest hours of morning.  Two bushels of crabs – if watermen get those – barely cover costs.  That doesn’t take into consideration the eight to ten hours of labor to catch the crabs.

Adding to the sour recipe is the large numbers of blue channel catfish and skates in the Chesapeake system, creatures that enjoy eating crabs as much as people do.  “There might be lots of small crabs out there, but there’s also lots of other animals feeding on them and taking their share.”

While nature and economic forces are taking their toll, state shellfish managers are considering how to manage the blue crab resource in the face of this year’s record-setting low population. At a recent meeting of Maryland’s Blue Crab Industry Advisory Council, resource managers proposed everything from limiting the harvest of males and females, especially, for the rest of the season by reducing the daily take of bushels permitted.  Also being considered is closing the harvest season in October or November or shortening the number of days each week when harvesting is allowed.

Whatever management tools the state decides to implement have to be announced prior to July 1. That’s the traditional date for announcing any revised harvesting regulations, after resource managers have had a chance to evaluate the results of the annual winter dredge survey.

Many watermen may be looking forward to the start of the 2022-2023 oyster season Oct. 1 with greater anticipation than usual.  The good news on that front is that Maryland’s oyster managers have proposed no changes to the regulations that were in place for last year’s strong season.

Dennis Forney has been a publisher, journalist and columnist on the Delmarva Peninsula since 1972.  He writes from his home on Grace Creek in Bozman.

June is Gay Pride Month.  President Clinton declared June “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month” in 1999 and 2000. President Obama declared June “LGBT Pride Month” during his term in office from 2009 until 2016. President Biden revived the celebration, and he declared June “LGBTQ+ Pride Month” in 2021. Several of the recognized “old masters,” including Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, were gay, as are some well-known contemporary artists. In her work, Mickalene Thomas, a gay African-American woman artist, celebrates and challenges the classical canons of style and creates a new contemporary canon depicting African-American women.   

Born in 1971 in Camden, New Jersey, Mickalene Thomas grew up in Hillside and East Orange, New Jersey. She and her brother were mostly raised by their mother, Sandra “Mama Bush,” a striking 6’1’’ tall model active in the 1970’s. Mama Bush enrolled Mickalene and her brother in after-school programs at the Newark Museum and the Henry Street Settlement. Thomas moved to Portland, Oregon, to study pre-law and theater. Her friends were musicians and artists, and her interests changed. When a friend took her to the Portland Art Museum in 1994 to see the work of Carrie Mae Weems, Thomas was overwhelmed: “It was probably the first time I ever saw myself in art. Those photographs really hit the core. I felt, that’s what you can do with art? Wow. One day after I went to see the show on my own, I didn’t even think about it, I just walked to the art-supply store.” She completed a BFA in 2000 at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and an MFA in painting at Yale in 2002.

Thomas is a multimedia artist specializing in photography and mixed media painting. An excellent example of her art is “Le dejeuner sur l’herbe: Les trois Femmes Noires” (2010) (48’’ x 60’’) (photograph) in the Baltimore Museum of Art. This piece is the first stage in her process. Her chosen subject was and continues to be African-American women wearing bright and eclectic patterned clothing that she designs. In this instance, the photograph was for a larger work commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York for its restaurant. Thomas used the sculpture garden on the roof of MoMA for the setting. The women are placed in front of one of Matisse’s “Backs,” a series of four female nude bronze relief sculptures. Her choice of these sculptures was a tribute to Matisse, one of her several influences. Thomas’s photographs are considered by the art world as separate but equal to her paintings as works of art.

Thomas frequently selects famous works of the “masters” and updates them. For the large MoMA restaurant window, Thomas selected Manet’s famous and, at the time, scandalous painting “Le dejeuner sur l’herbe” (1865). The subject seems tame today, but in 1865, the idea of a nude woman seated with clothed men casually picnicking in a public park in Paris was shocking. The public and the critics responded negatively. The woman boldly and unashamedly gazes at the viewer, her straw hat and blue dress scattered on the ground at the left, along with the empty bottles, rolls, and fruit. Another woman in the background appears to be about to undress.

Thomas’s completed commission, “Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires” (2010) (10 feet tall by 24 feet wide) (mixed media collage and painting), was displayed in the 53rd Street window of the MoMA restaurant The Modern. Thomas has changed the dynamic of the composition to include only three African-American woman. Fully dressed, they wear elaborate make-up and large Afro’s. All three look confidently at the viewer, inviting the viewer’s gaze. Art historians long have commented on the concept of “the gaze,” referring to white males looking at women in paintings, male artists looking at their models, and male audiences looking at paintings of women in museums. Thomas has given African-American women a major presence in all of her art, and she has created a new legacy for “the gaze.” The painting has traveled to several locations across North America including the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Seattle Art Museum. Catherina Manchanda, curator of the Seattle Art Museum commented, “These women are so grounded and perfectly comfortable in their own space… While we might be looking at them, they are also sizing us up.” 

To create the forest background, Thomas uses collaged wood panels, painted a blue sky, painted stylized trees, and placed Matisse’s bronze sculpture on a yellow wall between two of the women. The picnic still-life is created from several floral fabrics juxtaposed with well-placed but random flat color pieces. The influence of her artist muses, Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, and Faith Ringgold, to mention a few, can be seen in her tendency to include flat panels of color and interspersed lines that do not outline images, but enliven the work.

 

Essential to Thomas’s work is her lavish embellishment with rhinestones and sequins. When she was working on her master’s degree at Yale, Thomas commented, “I always felt my hand needed more. It wasn’t physical enough form. Visually, I felt the paint needed more texture, and I couldn’t figure out how to do that with oils. So, I went back to materials I had fun with.” Remembering the pointillism of Seurat and Australian aboriginal dot painting, she tried it out: “It just felt so good and right. And [these portraits] were crazy. And they were ugly and they were beautiful.” The “Dejeuner” was the largest work that Thomas had done, and it gave her the opportunity to spread her wings. She has never looked back: ”I’d embarked on this new endeavor of understanding the presence of this black body on that scale…It was always a political statement: people need to come in contact with this body, be face to face with it. It’s the ultimate sense of validation and the claiming of space.”

Thomas’s “Three Graces: Les trois Femmes Noires” (2011) is based on the poses of Botticelli’s three graces in “Primavera” (1477-82) (80’’ x 124’’). Although Botticelli’s three graces are clothed in sheer garments that hide nothing, he was soon to paint “The Birth of Venus” (1485-1486), that introduces the nude female to the canon of artistic images. Thomas’s works often includes African-American nude females, following such notable masters as Titian, Rubens, and Ingres. 

““Three Graces: Les trois Femmes Noires” (2011) (9 feet tall x 12 feet wide) (North Carolina Museum of Art) illustrates all of the elements of Thomas’s unique style. The three graces are buffed, fluffed, and dressed to the nines. Proud, strong, and totally comfortable, they are ready to party and do not care who sees them. The dresses and hair, heavily decorated with rhinestones and sequins, add to their joyful mood. The size of the figures and the viewer are on par, and the women take over the space. 

Thomas’s unusual fabric choices are also a significant part of her work. She remembers her grandmother using second-hand clothes to patch worn furniture. Her choice of fabrics come from old house dresses she finds in thrift stores: “I love house dresses — the pattern, the history, knowing that a particular woman wore this, like your grandma.” She believes the juxtaposition of the various fabrics is an “amalgamation of all of the different things we are as Americans.”

Thomas has made numerous portraits of famous African-American women, including Oprah Winfrey, Eartha Kitt, Whitney Houston, and Condoleezza Rice. Thomas’s silkscreen of “Michele O” (2008) (25’’ x 19.5’’), without the usual embellishments, was the first individual portrait of the First Lady. More recently, she had a solo exhibition Mentors, Muses and Celebrities (2017) at the Contemporary Art Museum of St. Louis.  The Gordon Levy Gallery opened in 2021 Thomas exhibitions in its four locations: New York, London, Paris, and Hong Kong. 

“Could a man have made these images? No, not my images.” (Mickalene Thomas)

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.